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penelopetheconartist · 5 months

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Orange Porch Light : Part 6

Coral Island fanfiction written by a Rafael simp. I write for funzies so it's quite garbagey but I had fun writing it and I hope y'all have fun reading it.

Rafael and OC farmer Penelope. Slice of life? I guess?

The spring morning felt warmer to Penelope as she walked into her kitchen barefoot instead of wearing her cozy slippers. Winter’s lingering chill in the floorboards was finally leaving. With the nights being less cold, Penelope slept harder than she meant to and found herself preparing her coffee rather sluggishly. Thankfully, warm sunshine glinted through her kitchen window to greet her and help with the waking process.

Her coffee-making process was always meditative, and she took the opportunity to centre herself before getting on with her day. Fresh beans were kept in an airtight jar which she would grind fresh every morning as soon as she got the kettle boiling. The aroma alone helped perk her groggy mind. Penelope still used the old pour-over decanter her grandparents gave her. She’d pour the hot water over the grounds in a swirling motion. Penelope wasn’t sure if this was a fancy way to have coffee, but it certainly was her favourite way. Next time she gets to chat with Raj, she’d like to ask their opinion on her coffee-making method. If they approve, Penelope will bring them a coffee.

With fresh hot coffee brewed and poured into her favourite green mug, Penelope eyed the letter from the mayor she placed on the fridge. The Cherry Blossom Festival was today. Feeling more awake, Penelope grinned recalling yesterday and all the time she spent with Rafael decorating and then his fake emergency. She could feel her cheeks blushing but since she was alone, she didn’t feel the need to hide.

What do the people of Starlet wear to festivals? Was this going to be a fancy affair? Leah will look stunning as usual. But the more Penelope thought about it, most everyone will likely be in casual clothes. She just didn’t want to stick out more than she already felt like she did. Maybe she’ll ask Surya how he feels about being new to the town. Maybe he doesn’t struggle with feeling like an outcast because he actually has family here.

Penelope had debated not going to the festival, but a few things helped her decide to go. First and most obviously, Rafael was going to be there. She felt like such a loser having a dumb little crush but oh well. Second, she really wanted to establish herself in a community that was as kind and as accepting as this one appeared to be. Third, she wanted this life, being a faceless corporate drone in Pokyo drove her to come here and change her life, so she was going to do everything she never would have. So, on that thought, having a crush is certainly something a faceless drone wouldn’t have. That made her smile, but the time of pondering was over, and she needed to get her work done before going to the festival.

Starlet really went all out for their festivals. Penelope couldn’t recall if her grandparents ever brought her to one. But the last time she had been out to the farm before she bought it was maybe when she was 5? Possibly even younger since she doesn’t remember anyone from this town who apparently has been here their whole lives. She was in grade 1 when everything in her life went to shit so it would make sense that the last time she visited the farm under her grandparents' ownership she would’ve been younger.

Penelope could see Rafael standing outside the festival grounds looking a little distressed. Evidently, he was psyching himself up to be in a group, mumbling to himself and doing some breathing exercises. Everything about him was endearing to Penelope, and although she wasn’t nearly as anxious around people as he was, she could relate. Especially still being the new person who bought the empty lot as the farm came to be known. That never did sit well with Penelope and her goal was to make the farm known as something else, anything but the empty lot.

Hi Rafael, she said softly since he looked super on edge.

He kind of snapped back into reality and after a moment smiled at Penelope, “oh. Hi.”

“You alright?”

“Uhm. Yeah. Just getting ready to be in a crowd”, he said bashfully.

“Did you bring anything for the hot pot?”

He frowned, “No. I wanted to bring some fresh fish but didn’t have time to go fishing at all. And the fish I did have in the fridge I…… I already ate it.”

“Well, you’re in luck, I brought a fish I caught this morning”, she smiled.

He beamed, “Ah, nice!”

“Are you ready to head in now?”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll follow you.”

Penelope led the way into the festival and Rafael followed already planning how he would spend his day.

“I’m going to go say hi to everyone”, Penelope stated.

“I’m going to do what I normally do. Grab food and sit somewhere quiet.”

Penelope sighed, “I’ll likely join you on sitting somewhere quiet.”

They parted ways and Penelope went about socializing to help herself feel like less of an outcast. As she suspected, Surya didn’t feel the same way about being an outcast. Perhaps Penelope is just experiencing imposter syndrome and she’s overthinking things. That’s what a corporate drone would do. She tried to shove her doubts out of her mind as she continued to chat with everyone.

Raj was delighted to hear how Penelope made herself coffee and would love to try it someday. They will never turn down a hot drink prepared by someone else. As expected, Leah was wearing something gorgeous. Penelope wasn’t jealous per se, but she wished she was confident enough to wear clothes so nice for anything. Thankfully, Leah seemed to be the only one who dressed fancy for this festival. Everyone else was dressed casually to enjoy the beautiful spring day in the outdoors.

Rafael had accumulated a mountain of food and found his corner quiet. Alice was already there drinking some tea. He was always glad he knew at least one other person who enjoyed partaking in festivals from a distance. As usual, Alice gave him a judging look at how much food he had but as usual he ignored her judging expression.

Penelope chatted with Frank for a minute after she added her fish to the pot. The various ingredients were questionable, but it smelled incredible. So far, she’s only tried Frank’s food at tavern, so she was interested in trying all the different foods on display. She gathered a few samples for herself on a plate and was heading towards Alice and Rafael when she overheard Mayor Connor praising Pablo on the decorations with a few of the other townies surrounding them. She decided to join the conversation.

“Thanks again for setting up all the decorations for the festival”, Connor said to Pablo.

Pablo just grinned, “You know I like to help.”

Penelope butted in, “Yeah Pablo. You did a great job. Tell me, which decoration did you hang specifically?”

Pablo was taken aback by Penelope’s boldness but ultimately, she was right; he slacked off hard yesterday. He grinned, “ah you’re right. I was distracted yesterday; you and Rafael did all the work.”

Penelope was satisfied with that answer, and she turned to the crowd, Rafael really did most of the work. I just helped.

She walked away pleased with herself and joined the quiet corner. Rafael barely acknowledged Penelope when she joined them as he was lost in the sauce, the sauce of Frank’s cooking. Alice poured Penelope a cup of tea and they chatted while Rafael was living his best life.

“Are you settling in okay Penelope? Alice asked passing her a cup of tea.

“Yeah, I think so. I hope someday I stop feeling like the new kid though.”

“Aww. Yeah, that feeling is no fun. Don’t worry, you’re fitting in well”, Alice reassured her.

“Really? I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb.”

“No. You don’t stick out like you think you do, I promise.”

Penelope smiled feeling a little relieved but not completely convinced. Rafael was in a separate plain of existence with his mountain of food.

“Having our very own farmer in town makes Starlet feel complete” Alice smiled.

That was a nice sentiment. Hopefully, her crops continue to be fruitful. She still has nightmares about her entire farm being infected with a blight or something. Alice noticed Penelope started to get lost in her own thoughts, so it was time to change the subject.

“Hey, did you know that spring festivals used to celebrate fertility?” Alice looked excited to drop some knowledge. Rafael was still not listening.

Penelope thought for a moment, “Yeah, I think I had heard of that before. Like fertility of the crops for the year, right?”

“And fertility of the womb.”

Raf made a face, “Stop saying fertility.”

Alice rolled her eyes, “Get back to eating. I’m talking to Penelope.”

He happily obliged.

“Some spring festivals encouraged young couples to sneak off into the woods to celebrate their fertility.”

Penelope gave Alice a side glance hoping she wouldn’t say that’s what this festival was about. Did she just move to a sex cult island??? Because of course, she would. Penelope was mentally preparing to move as soon as possible.

“That’s not what this festival is about right?” She asked hesitantly ready to run if she heard the wrong answer.

Alice giggled, “No. Unless there is someone you’d like to sneak off with.”

Penelope choked and started coughing. She was not ready for Alice to say something like that. And since she allowed herself to have a crush, yes there was someone she wanted to sneak off with, and he was right there!!! Rafael had no idea what was going on but Alice was giggling and Penelope was choking. He clearly missed something. He started to pat Penelope’s back still confused why Alice was laughing at Penelope coughing so much.

“Are you okay?” He managed to not have food in his mouth long enough to ask.

Penelope brushed him away her face getting pinker, “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Alice was pleased with herself as that reaction confirmed for her that Penelope did indeed have a feeling or two for Rafael. Rafael glanced between the two ladies; Alice had that look of fake innocence when she stirs something up and Penelope looked about as flustered as she did when she fell asleep at the shop. He thought it was best not to ask and went back to eating. While he ate a few people came over to the quiet corner to compliment him on putting up the decorations. With every compliment, he became more and more flustered as this had never happened before. Penelope felt proud for directing the praise to those who actually did the work.

After a little while, when people finally stopped coming to say nice things to Rafael, he had finished everything he put on his plate and leaned back with a groan.

“Oh, I think I ate too much” he whined quietly.

Alice rolled her eyes, “you do every year.”

He laid back with another groan. Penelope was a little concerned, but Alice carried on enjoying her tea and a reasonable amount of snacks. Alice and Penelope turned their attention to Theo who was singing now. He was such a delight to have around playing music and singing adding to the magic of the pink petals falling all around the park. Penelope glanced over her shoulder to Rafael, and he had a few petals scattered over him. She decided pink looked nice on him as more petals landed on him. Suddenly, Valentina skipped over to them.

“Hey Uncle Raf, wanna get cake with me?”

He perked and sat up, “Yeah let’s go.”

Val took his hand and before they took off to get dessert Raf turned, “Penelope? Alice? Would either of you like some cake?”

Penelope was flabbergasted. He was in a food coma literally a minute ago.

“No thanks”, Alice smiled politely.

“Uh sure”, Penelope said.

Rafael and Valentina returned shortly with a reasonable amount of dessert. The sun had started to set, and Penelope found herself thinking of the empty park last night. Rafael was right. The park was prettier when there were less people. However, with all the people, Penelope felt grateful that so far, this new life of hers was working out. She didn’t want to get herself too comfortable though as she had trust issues with life itself. But so far so good.

Alice left with Suki when she collected Valentina. Most the people with children were getting ready to leave. Penelope was feeling ready to leave herself, this first festival felt like a success in her book.

“Are you staying longer?” She asked Rafael who managed to avoid another food coma.

“Yeah”, he sighed, “Pablo and I help with the tear down once the festival is over. Then we finish taking all the decorations down in the morning.”

“I could help again.”

He smiled but shook his head no, “I appreciate the offer but it’s okay. Pablo needs to do something.”

They both laughed.

“Okay well, I’ll see you later then. Sweet dreams.”

His smile got bigger, “Sweet dreams.”

#coral island #deanne says things #coral island rafael #coral island fanfiction #hopefully all this writing for funzies helps me get better at writing #this is basic but i had fun writing it #i needed rafael content so i made my own #deanne is cringe on main #i literally cannot judge myself #i brought schoolwork to work but i have a migraine #migraine writing yeehaw

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theda-rison · 4 years

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Camp Nano July 2020 - Results, Discussion, and Conclusion

the Like, wow, Scoob!

Camp Nano July 2020 is done, and here are some thoughts:

I always knew that writing a comic script was going to be a learning experience - I’ve never written a comic script so it really couldn’t be anything except for a learning experience - but hoooooo boy, was it ever!

Before starting I couldn’t find anything on how long comic scripts normally are; I don’t know why, that just seems information that isn’t really shared? (If anyone knows of a resource, please send it to me!) I’m guessing it has a lot to do with there just being less comic writers than there are say, book writers and movie writers. That’s probably what happens when your interests are niche in some way, it’s just harder to find anything about them.

FORTUNATELY, I have the fancy library-bound volumes of The Sandman, and there’s excerpts of the scripts in the back. Which like… thank you @neil-gaiman, or whoever made that decision, because being able to look at an actual script and see how it’s formatted and what’s included has been the biggest help. Even the “How to Write a Comic Script!” videos I found on YouTube didn’t have example scripts which... I don’t know, I don’t get it. Please include examples, comic YouTubers. I am confusion.

Now is the time for a sexy graph, because we are the kind of people who keep Excel spreadsheets of word counts and make graphs for fun.

Anyway, let’s look at…

youtube

[Good. I was listening to As The World Falls Down by David Bowie over and over, and now this is stuck in my head again. I don’t know why I do these things to myself. Also, I love Peter Tork’s face during some of the “AAAHHHH”s lol]

I can’t remember if I stated this before or during Camp at any point, but my goal was 60k words. I dislike aspiring for un-round numbers like “1667″ every day. Any number I could possibly pick is arbitrary, but for some reason the classic Nanowrimo number of 1667 seems even more arbitrary. “2000″ is a much better number. And, I can generally write 2000 words in two hours before running out of steam, so it works out well. It also divides better.

Having said that, you might be thinking, “Theda, the end Actual number on your graph is a lot closer to 90k than it is 60k,” and you would be right, good eyes. Were I Brandon Sanderson and you were one of my students, I would toss you a gummi bear. As it is, you’re not my student and I have no gummi bears and I’m not even Brandon Sanderson… so life is just upsetting I guess.

[But I am back to listening to As The World Falls Down, so I suppose it all works out.]

Back to the graph: The Actual. Look at this wavy-fucking-scalloped-fucking progression. Look at it. I can’t tell if it makes me happy or angry or what, but I know it gives me some kind of feeling. I think I like it from a purely aesthetic point of view, but from the point of the view of the person who made it, it annoys me.

I had a couple of days where I - in my infinite stupidity - didn’t really elaborate on what was supposed to happen in some of the scenes in my scene list and so I spent my “Writing!” time (as it’s labeled in my planner) not writing, but looking at the page cursing myself for not having written any directions for me, a directionless person.

You may also notice that the Goal bars suddenly jump up on the 24th day,. That’s because - in my infinite wisdom - I redid my goals after reaching 60k. It just makes more sense to me to be like, “Well, I punched that goal in the face. Let’s try and go WAY overboard,” because I have the Too Much gene and as Henry Rollins says: “Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.” I wouldn’t say that’s a personal philosophy so much as a Thing I Am Compelled To Do Or I Will Die.

But that’s just me.

As for the trend line, I prefer it looking more steep because that’s way more gratifying, but that’s what I get for writing parts of my scene list like, “That’s okay, Future Me will take care of it!” Past Me, you are a dick and you need to stop doing these things. You are a bastard.

Now for the table!

[I’m sorry if that’s very small.]

And this time I’m showing you the actual table I use to write down my words. Complicated? Yes. Sexy? Very yes. A little annoying? Also yes. Do we get a little worried that she works too hard and refuses to take a vacation? We do, but we also know that she does it because she loves her work, and we love and support her and bring her snacks throughout the workday to keep her going. What a great table.

First of all: Yes, my first writing block is at 4am. It’s because I have a day job and if I write from 4-6 I can use my brain right when it’s freshly slumbered instead of using it for nonsense at work all day and being unable to write and aggravated because my mental capacity is nil and I no longer know what words are. In an ideal world I would be able to write all day but, here we are.

You might notice there’s a lot of 0’s in the 4am block, especially in the fourth week, and that’s more so because - in my infinite infiniteness (infinity?) - I am secretly an ice giant (but like, smaller) and it’s summer and the northern hemisphere is Too Hot and I literally will not be able to sleep at night until about December. Until then, I am forced to understand what it’s like to be a jacket potato for half of the year so I can empathize with their starchy pain because this is, for whatever reason, Important.

It me. (Recipe)

Anyway,

My record day was 7519 on the 10th, which is just sexy and fun and cool and everything we want, and my lowest was a big fat 0 on the 16th.

I felt super motivated for reasons I don’t remember on the 10th. This is because I didn’t have my planner yet and was not keeping notes anywhere else at that time. (It’s an undated Daily Passion Planner, in case you’re also a slut for planners and wish to know ;) ). I think I was trying to do a 10k day just for funzies? Which, technically, at 2k words in 2 hours I should be able to do 10k in 5, but cell phones exist (and are too distracting), and until I shed my corporeal form I still have to do things like “make food and eat it,” and “get up to pee,” and “experience all the vagaries and horrors of human existence.” I’m hoping it clears up soon.

The 16th was the day that Future Me took Past Me by the hand and said, “My good bitch, you need to stop doing that thing where you leave shit for me because you run out of motivation or executive function or whatever the fuck is happening where you decide you don’t want to do something anymore, seemingly at random. You deciding to leave school before the day even started because you were bored may have been cute when you were a kid - and also annoying for everyone around you, and just alarming that time they had to pry your hands off the door molding as you held on to it and screamed - but as an adult you are both the cause of and the person who has to deal with this bullshit, and you need to stop.”

On the 16th I went to the Shrine of the Self (sorry, I’ve been reading a lot of manga lately) and made an offering for forgiveness, and then hunkered down and added a TON of notes and partially written scenes to my scene list. You can see how much that helped; it’s almost like having direction is actually useful, lol.

BUT, despite all that direction and despite punching my goal in the face, breaking it’s glasses, and taking it’s lunch money, the script is not finished!

Here’s some math as of the 23rd:

There are 124 points in my outline On the 23rd, I had completed 44 of those points, at 363 pages or 59,601 words 124 / 44 = 2.81 Now we check: 44 * 2.81 = 123.6 (close enough) So as of the 23rd, the projection for completing the script was: 363 * 2.81 = 1,020 pages 59,601 * 2.81 = 157,479 words

Now, I don’t know what the fuck that means because I don’t really do numbers, but at the time of the 23rd it looked an awful lot like I wasn’t going to finish this Camp project. And uh… hey, that was correct.

So I’m going to be continuing Camp Nano July 2020, but also in August 2020, over about 20 more days (providing I hit my goal every day.)

So:

IF -> I need to get up to 158,000; 158,000 - 86,000 = 72,000 words need to be written. (I'm rounding the total up because I canNOT imagine this script being somehow smaller than that at this point, and I’m rounding my Camp total down because who cares about 72 words?) I divided 72,000 from a few numbers until I got a word goal I was okay with, that I think I can do, here’s that one: 72,000 / 20 days = 3,600 words a day (This would mean I can either do 2k in the morning and then 1600 later, or the reverse. You know, whatever way I feel spicy that day.) THEN -> I need to write 3,600 words a day for 20 days to (hopefully) finish this script before work picks up at the end of August.

And then I’ll chill from the end of August - October (except for maybe some short stories or essays. I have a lot of Thoughts and they need to be purged from my brain for my own good). And then I’ll use Nanowrimo Classic (November) to edit this fucker.

SO… that’s some stuff.

As I said at the beginning this endeavor was only ever going to be a learning experience. Having to write 158k words total doesn’t scare me, the longest thing I’ve written yet was something like 190k words. Trying to finish it before the end of August is the daunting part. Especially since being able to be creative right now just keeps making my brain puke out more ideas, and then there’s too many ideas and I’m just writing them all down and hopefully I can get to them later.

Anyway, good job on Camp Nano July 2020 everyone! We did it!

And if you didn’t do it: don’t worry, you’ll do it next time :D

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